Less than 24 hours now until I leave for Malaysia. Excited and anxious, all at the same time.

Most of the month of August was spent communicating with people in a variety of locations around the world about the possibility of helping particular language communities organize a RWC workshop. Anita and I spent many, many hours putting together a budget for each context, based on input from the contact person at each location. The result of all that work (a combined budget for 22 RWC workshops from Burkina Faso to the Philippines) was submitted to Wycliffe USA, who are currently working on finding a donor interested in funding all or part of what we're requesting money to do.

The past two weeks, I've been focusing on preparations for the RWC workshop coming up in Malaysia. Here's the schedule:

Sunday, September 15
  4:30am EDT leave for the airport
  8:50am EDT first flight leaves Charlotte for Dallas/Fort Worth
  12:20pm EDT second flight leaves Dallas/Fort Worth for Los Angeles Int'l (LAX)
  7:45pm EDT third flight leaves LAX for Tokyo
Monday, September 16
  9:05am EDT (10:05pm local time) fourth flight leaves Tokyo for Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
  7:30pm EDT (7:30am Tuesday local time) fifth flight leaves KL for Kota Kinabalu, my destination
  10:05pm EDT (10:05am Tuesday local time) scheduled arrival in Kota Kinabalu

Notice that Malaysia time is 12 hours ahead of Eastern Daylight Saving time, so anything happening in the morning in Malaysia is happening at that same hour the previous evening/night on the East Coast of the U.S. (i.e., 8:00am Friday in Malaysia is simultaneous with 8:00pm Thursday in EDT zone.) All unspecified times posted from here on are Malaysia time.

Wednesday, September 18
  8:00am RWC workshop training phase begins (note that this is less than 24 hours after I am scheduled to arrive in Kota Kinabalu)
Thursday and Friday, September 19 and 20
  workshop training phase continues
Saturday, September 21
  I get the day off, as this day is designated as "arrival time" for the participants of the main phase of the workshop. This will probably be my only opportunity to buy souvenirs for my family members, who are all wishing they could travel with me to this part of the world, where none of us has ever yet been.
Sunday, September 22 - Thursday, September 26
  Word-collection phase of the workshop. I will provide training during the first day, then be available to answer questions and solve problems that arise throughout the remainder of the workshop.
Friday, September 27 - Sunday, September 29
  Clean-up phase of the workshop. This will be my first time to be involved in this aspect of the workshop, so I'll be relying heavily on advice I've received from colleagues who have had experience in this area.
Monday, September 30
  7:20am (7:20pm Sunday EDT) first flight leaves Kota Kinabalu for Kuala Lumpur
  10:50am (10:50pm Sunday EDT) second flight leaves Kuala Lumpur for Tokyo
  8:30pm (7:30am EDT) third flight leaves Tokyo for Los Angeles
  5:40pm (8:40pm EDT) fourth flight leaves Los Angeles for Dallas/Fort Worth
  10:35pm (11:35pm EDT) arrive in Dallas/Fort Worth; spend the night in a hotel
Tuesday, October 1
  7:25am (8:25am EDT) fifth flight leaves Dallas/Fort Worth for Charlotte
  10:50am EDT scheduled arrival in Charlotte
  noon EDT estimated arrival back home in Waxhaw

I expect that my body is going to be very confused much of this trip as to when it should be sleeping and when it should be alert. It's going to be an interesting--and perhaps wild--ride!